


their best wasn't enough

by transpeterparker (robertmontauk)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Pepper Potts, F/M, Sexism, minor hurt/comfort, on behalf of the OMC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robertmontauk/pseuds/transpeterparker
Summary: Pepper Potts is the CEO of her own goddamn company, but that doesn't mean she's immune to misogynistic assholes.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 19
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this was born three months ago when i realized (with the exception of _i love you - i love - i -_ ) that i had never written a fic from a woman's perspective. BOO ME. here's me, trying my best to [begin to] fix that. hope you enjoy!
> 
> thanks to my beta, [aster](https://carpals.tumblr.com), for doing a quick look-through last minute! any remaining mistakes are all mine.
> 
> tw: sexism. uh. yeah
> 
> title from _pussy is god_ by king princess, WHICH WAS CO-WRITTEN BY AMANDLA STENBERG???? what a power couple. i'm in awe.

One of the perks of being the CEO of her own company, Pepper has decided, is the delegation.

Pepper remembers the days of secretarial work with a shudder - always walking behind Tony with a stack of folders in her arm, slowing herself down so that she didn't walk faster than he did. She was always trying to convince him to sign a piece of paperwork, or to go to one of his own goddamn press conferences, or to actually show up to a meeting on time. 

Now she has people to do that for her, and all she has to do is make sure that she shows up to _her_ meetings on time -

Penn pokes their head in through the door. “Do you want me to print out your notes for your 3 o’clock?”

Pepper hums. “What’s my 3 o’clock again?”

Penn glances down quickly at their tablet, then answers, “That… interview, with the first-level HR guy? That you wanted to sit in on?”

Pepper groans lightly, leaning back in her chair. “Remind me again why I’m going to that instead of enjoying a good two hours of time by and for myself?”

Penn’s face twists into something full of amusement, and they look down at their tablet with crinkled eyes. “Well, you were originally scheduled for a meeting with Hammer -”

“Of course,” Pepper says, snorting. 

“- of Hammer Industries, but _unfortunately_ you had a prior commitment, that commitment being this meeting, of course.”

“Right,” Pepper agrees. Better this than Hammer.

“Print out the notes,” she asks, smiling weakly at Penn to soften her weirdly sharp tone.

“Alright,” Penn says, nodding softly. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

\---

Pepper tucks the files under her arm and walks out of the break room, coffee cup in one hand and stirring stick in the other. She stirs in the sugar, takes a sip of coffee and wrinkles her nose lightly - Keurig coffee is fine, but nothing compares to the dark roast she keeps in the office and at home. 

Walking into the conference room where the interview is supposed to happen, she’s greeted with a guy sitting at one side of the table, leaning back with his phone out. 

She really hopes that’s the applicant - it's 3:05 and one of her pet peeves is applicants who don't show up on time. 

(When interviewers are late, it's a fear tactic. When applicants are late, it's idiocy.)

He doesn't look up when she enters the room so she doesn't say anything, just crosses to the other side and starts to put her things down on the table. Pepper sneaks a quick glance at him as he goes - he doesn’t look familiar at all (he’s got quite a forgettable face, actually) so she feels pretty comfortable in assuming he’s the applicant.

Pepper’s got her back to him, turning on the computer they keep in this room (she doesn't really think the interviewer’s going to want to use it, but it can't hurt to set it up) when he speaks. 

"Hey, doll," the guy says. He has a weirdly nasal kind of voice, deep in a way that grates on her nerves. "You mind grabbing me a cup of coffee?"

Pepper can hear the smirk in his voice.

She freezes, her spine tensing. "I'm - sorry? Could you say that again?"

The man (she's already forgotten his name - look at that, look at how unimportant he is. She's never going to see him again, Pepper reminds herself.) snorts out a nasty-sounding laugh. "True what they say about blondes, huh? A coffee, sweetheart. Milk and sugar, if you've got it."

Pepper takes a breath and holds it. She imagines turning around and punching him square in the face. She lets out the breath and reminds herself that the punch, while very cathartic, would probably be more trouble than it'sworth. Another breath, and instead she imagines all of the anger sitting at the bottom of her stomach moving to become the air in her lungs, painting it a deep red with her rage. She holds it for ten seconds, just to feel the burn in her chest, and then releases it in a puff of red-tinted mist.

Pepper smiles in satisfaction at the relaxed feeling that comes over her. What would she do without Bruce's meditation techniques, honestly?

“Of course,” she says, saccharine sweet, pivoting on one foot and almost marching out of the room. 

He doesn’t even look up when she leaves.

She enters the break room and stalks over to the coffee machine, biting on the inside of her cheek to avoid screaming - Pepper doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of hearing a reaction.

One breath in - one, two, three, four. 

Keurig cup into the slot.

One breath out - one, two, three, four.

Mug under the spout.

One breath in - one, two, three, four.

Button pressed.

She takes a couple more breaths as the coffee drips, and by the time it’s ready Pepper finally feels less like a volcano and more like a woman who is worth more than to let some asshole’s assumptions about her ruin her day.

She spares a glance for the milk and sugar packets before grabbing the coffee cup and walking back out of the break room to the conference room. Announcing her presence with the sharp clack of her heels, she puts the cup of coffee down by the man's elbow (allowing herself the quick fantasy of him, knocking the mug over and spilling hot coffee all over his pristine heather grey suit).

"No milk," she says with a disgustingly bright voice, "or sugar. Sorry!"

The man flashes a distracted smile at her and glances down at his phone, so quick he doesn't notice the way Pepper's eyes roll and her smile drops as she starts to turn away. Once she's safely in her seat across the table, notepad in one hand and phone in the other, she texts Tony. 

_Remind me again why I wanted to watch interviews?_

**dont ask me,** he responds (far too quickly, she thinks with a fond roll of her eyes). **smth abt staying in touch w th ppl. idk**

**hows it going???**

_This guy's a douchebag._

**like danger douche or??????**

Pepper smiles down at her phone - Tony knows not to fight her battles for her, but over the years he’s learned ways of making sure she doesn’t need him to regardless.

_No, just sexist douche._

**ew gross** ****  
**r u going 2 rip him a new one????** **  
** **can i watch?????**

_Ha, ha. No, I'm just going to watch him tear himself apart. Should be fun._

**god u wld be such a sexy evil queen**

_;)_

**< 3**

_< 3_

A minute or so later, she's idly doodling in her notebook when the interviewer walks in, looking a little harried.

He's in his 60s, with a little belly apparent under his suit jacket and a wide, friendly smile on his face.

Jordan... something or other, Pepper thinks. Assistant Head of PR.

"So sorry about that!" he tells the guy, smoothing his hands down the sides of his suit jacket and then sticking one hand out for the guy to shake. "Jenny held me back with a question about how to handle the recent PAC rumors, but no matter. My name’s Willis Jackson, nice to meet you! Sit down, will you? Let's get started."

The guy sits down, resting comfortably in his chair without question. 

Pepper watches all of this with the slightest hint of a smile on her face, pen still poised on the paper in the middle of an unfinished imaginary salt shaker filled with strawberries. 

She doesn't say anything, waiting patiently as Willis (wow, Pepper was totally off) settles himself into a chair, reaching into his briefcase and pulling out a file folder. He glances up - just briefly, but a split second is all he needs to see Pepper Potts ( _the_ Pepper Potts, she thinks gleefully) sitting at the table, perfectly put together.

"Oh - oh my goodness, ma'am," he sputters, scrambling to push himself to his feet. He stands up and crosses over to Pepper, who calmly slides her chair out from the table and stands up. She takes a second to feel quietly superior in the way she towers over him in these heels, takes another (longer) second to feel guilty about it, then leans forward just slightly and takes his hand in a firm shake.

_Showtime, baby._

"- so sorry," Willis is saying, smiling apologetically, "I didn't even realize you were there! It's so good to see you again, Ms. Potts, so good to see you -"

"You too, Willis," Pepper says, smoothly cutting him off. "It's been too long."

Williss face splits into a relieved sort of smile, his shoulders seeming to drop as he takes in her words. “Oh, yes, oh - yes, definitely. Um. If you don’t mind me asking, Ms. Potts - what are you doing -”

“Here, of all places?” Pepper finishes with a smile. She steps back and watches as Willis mirrors her, dropping back to walk to his seat. "Well, I was making a couple of adjustments to the first-level application form -" she waves a hand at the shell-shocked man across from her, "- and I realized I couldn't think of the types of questions we need to be answered! Isn't that odd?"

Pepper lets out a small little laugh, her eyes crinkling, and Willis copies that too.

_Hook, line, and sinker._

"So I figured I'd sit in on an interview, get a sort of feel for what types of questions you ask! Then I can figure out the sorts of things I can put on the form so that we can start to streamline the process a little bit."

Willis nods again. (He looks like a bobblehead at this point. It's kind of cute, in a weird way.)

"All right, yes, of course! That sounds wonderful. Well, Mister..." he trails off, turning to the man still frozen at the other end of the table.

He takes what feels like a painfully long time to recover, although, in reality, it's probably only a matter of seconds. The guy purses his lips, swallows harshly, and takes a deep breath before responding, "Dennis Johnson, sir."

"Mister Dennis Johnson, sir! Well, aren't you in for a treat, huh? Not even your first day at Stark Industries and here you are, being greeted by the CEO of the company, Pepper Potts herself! What an honor."

Dennis Johnson nods, his face now visibly pale. "Y-yes, ah - yes, it is. Pleasure to meet you, uhm - pleasure, Ms. Potts."

Pepper smiles - a fractured thing, serene with a layer of cracked ice lying underneath. "Mmm."

She very deliberately does not return the pleasantry, and Dennis Johnson's fingers start twitching against the table.

Willis's obviously a little thrown off by the sudden tension in the room, his smile flickering as he glances between them, but he recovers quickly and shoulders on. "Let's get started, shall we?"

\---

“Well. I think that’s all the questions I have! Ms. Potts,” Willis says, looking towards Pepper, “do you have anything you’d like to ask?”

Pepper lets that question sit for a second. Still leaning back in her chair, she glances down at the page full of scribbles and asks the question she’s known she was going to ask when Dennis Johnson called her “doll”. 

“Mister Johnson,” she says calmly, her eyes flicking up to stare into his, “have you ever worked under the supervision of a female employer?”

“Oh, um - no, I’m afraid I haven’t.”

“Alright. Have you ever had a female or feminine boss of any kind?”

Dennis Johnson is scrambling, she can tell - his eyes are flickering around the room, desperately searching for an answer, and the fidgeting (which had faded when Willis started asking questions) starts back up again. "I, uh -"

"It's alright if you haven't," Pepper interrupts serenely, smiling in a way that assures him it is not at all alright.

Dennis Johnson swallows visibly. A little shiver runs through his body, and Pepper almost smiles. “I. No, ma’am.”

Pepper hums. “Alright, then,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “I think that’s all the questions I have for today. Willis, do you have anything you’d like to add?”

She offers a cursory smile in Willis’ direction, but he doesn’t seem to notice, too busy scanning the notes he had taken (Willis was a good interviewer, Pepper has to admit) for anything else. “No,” he says finally, “no, I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Thank you for your time, Mister Johnson. We’ll have the decision out to you in a couple of days.”

Dennis Johnson nods with the barest smile, replies, “Thank you for the opportunity” in a bland voice, and waits an excruciating five seconds before realizing that they both (well, Pepper, and Willis, who is following along) expect him to leave so that they can talk.

“Oh!” Dennis Johnson scrambles to get up, almost (so close!) knocking over the half-full cup at his elbow in his rush. He picks it up, then looks around, and Pepper just waves a hand toward the ring of light brown on the table.

“Just leave it there. Someone will pick it up,” she says, and he does, finally leaving.

“So!” Willis says, voice a little too loud for the nearly-empty room. “What do we think, then?”

Pepper pauses for the appropriate amount of time, humming under her breath. “Ah, well. It’s a no from me, I’m afraid. He doesn’t quite have the proper credentials, and I have to admit I don’t like that he quite obviously is uncomfortable with the idea of working under a woman.”

Willis nods slowly, looking down at his notes. “Right… yes, yes, I noticed that too. He seemed nice enough, but you’re right - I don’t think he’d be the best fit for the company. Alright, then! I’ll go ahead and put his rejection into the system.”

Pepper pauses, hesitates, then makes a split second decision she hopes she won’t regret later. “Okay, great. Do me a favor, though - don’t send him an email, okay? Just send me his information and I’ll email him personally.”

“Oh!” Willis’ eyebrows jump but he doesn’t protest, picking up his pen again to jot something down. “Alright, I’ll do that right away.”

“Fantastic!” Pepper stands up and gathers her things, holding her hand out to Willis for a quick handshake. “Well, this has been quite the enlightening experience. I definitely have a lot to work with; thanks for having me sit in!”

Willis absolutely glows with her compliment, his smile stretching across his cheeks. “No, no, thank _you_ for sitting in! I never would have thought to ask that question about having a feminine boss, even though it’s definitely an important part of any employee’s experience, so that was very helpful. Feel free to do this again, anytime.”

Pepper smiles, wide and genuine. “Definitely.”

With one last nod, she turns and leaves the room, immediately heading for the elevators.

“JARVIS, where’s Tony?” she asks, leaning her head against the back wall as the doors close.

 _“He’s in the workshop currently, Miss Potts,”_ the AI replies. 

“Okay, great. Send me to the workshop then, please.”

_“Of course, Miss Potts.”_

Pepper grabs her phone and pulls open her conversation with Tony. 

_Hey, I’m on my way up._

She realizes belatedly that she could’ve just asked JARVIS to tell Tony she was coming to the workshop. Ah, well. 

**my hands r ready for ur feet**

_Thanks, but please don’t say it like that, it sounds creepy._

**;)**

Pepper rolls her eyes fondly (which seems to be a common occurrence when it comes to Tony) and shuts her phone off, not bothering to respond.

A moment later, the elevator pings quietly and the doors open to reveal the lab/workshop floor. Pepper pushes herself off of the wall, moving to leave when JARVIS’ unusually quiet voice (is it a voice if it’s computer-generated? Pepper never knows with these things) stops her in her tracks.

 _“Miss Potts,”_ he says, voice strangely hesitant, _“if I may -”_

Pepper waits for a second, but JARVIS doesn’t finish his sentence. “What’s up, J?” she asks, walking out of the elevator.

The next time he speaks, it’s through a hidden speaker in the hallway. _“My apologies, Miss Potts. I only wanted to express my sympathies for the situation you were forced into. I admit, it had not occurred to me before that a woman in a position of power such as yourself might still face such instances of blatant sexism.”_

A soft smile spreads across Pepper’s face before she can even think about hiding it. She huffs out a little breath, trying to think of what to say. “I - ha. Thanks, JARVIS.” She pats the wall closest to her, and the soft hum of machinery from behind it gets a little louder. “I really appreciate that.”

_“Of course, Miss Potts.”_

Letting her hand drop from the wall, Pepper walks the rest of the way to the workshop and pauses before opening the door, pressing a hand to the glass when she sees Tony

He’s completely in his element - he’s got a ratty T-shirt and a pair of old jeans on, feet bare, face mask and gloves on (for once), holding something that looks kind of like a curling iron to two pieces of metal.

(Listen, she’s the CEO, not the engineer, okay? It’s Tony’s job to know what all the fiddly bits are, not hers.)

When she opens the door, a little alarm sounds and Tony startles, jerking his head up to look straight at Pepper. He waves his hand in the air and the alarm stops.

“Hey, Pep,” he says, voice muffled by the welding mask. He pulls it off and stands up, taking off the gloves and throwing them on the desk. “How was it?”

“Satisfying in the end,” Pepper replies as she crosses over to the corner with the couch and throws herself down. She watches Tony through half-open eyes as he grabs a stool and wheels it over, grabbing a bottle of lotion as he goes. 

When he sits down, Pepper lifts one foot questioningly, raising an eyebrow when he looks at her. Tony smiles, soft and small, and then gently undoes the strap of her high heel and slips it off her foot, resting it on the floor next to him.

“Tell me about it,” he requests, digging his knuckle into the arch of her foot.

Pepper lets out a small groan, tips her head back, thinks for a slow second about how ridiculously lucky she is to have met this crazy, kind, incredible genius. She sighs.

“His name was Dennis Johnson - which, really, what kind of name is that? - and he walked and called _me_ “doll” right off the bat. I mean, can you believe that? What kind of asshole does that? And he didn’t even bother to look at me…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please drop a comment if you enjoyed/didn't/just want to let me know what you thought! i'm kind of insecure about this fic (i have the vague notion that i stole the premise from something?????) but it's important to me so. yeah. 
> 
> hope you liked it!


	2. Formal Rejection Letter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Email from Pepper Potts, to Dennis Johnson.

From: Pepper Potts <potts@starkindustries.org>  
To: Dennis Johnson <johnsonD@gmail.com>  
Bcc: Tony Stark <stark@starkindustries.org>  
Subject: Your Application to Stark Industries, PR

Hey Doll,

The hiring department at Stark Industries and I sincerely regret to inform you that we will not be hiring you as a level 1 intern in the Public Relations department. Unfortunately, we are looking for someone with more experience handling the sensitive nature of this position. We thank you for your time and wish you the best of luck finding a suitable career.

Sincerely,

Pepper Potts  
CEO, Stark Industries  
Pronouns: she/her  
potts@starkindustries.org

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the five-minute delay i forgot to add this bit.
> 
> in case you were wondering, peter accidentally forced every employee at SI to go through transgender-sensitivity (ish) training by virtue of being himself. now they all have to include pronouns in their signature. oops!


End file.
